


An Idiot's Guide to Christmas

by klmeri



Series: Spacewrapped [5]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Department Store, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Community: space_wrapped, Gen, Humor, McCoy plays Santa, Pre-Relationship, Warnings for Alcoholism and Depression, Warnings for Jim Kirk-hijinks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-14
Updated: 2014-12-14
Packaged: 2018-03-01 11:20:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2771135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klmeri/pseuds/klmeri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grandma got run over by a reindeer because, sorry, Santa was drunk. Or, in other words, Christmas isn't the jolliest time of year for one Santa Claus in particular. During his holiday gig, Leonard is plagued by someone who has the appearance of a grown-up but is in reality the world's most annoying kid. He wants Leonard to explain why Christmas is about celebration, which is an answer Leonard doesn't have to give.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Santa Hates Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [space_wrapped](http://space-wrapped.livejournal.com/); based on the prompt: _McCoy is a department store Santa, and not a very good one. To make matters worse, some snot-nosed adult starts coming through the Santa line and trying to sit on his lap._
> 
> This story is not what you might expect. I started with an idea, then decided halfway through that the plot was less important than the characters. The endgame became how to bring the crew together as a band of misfits that we all know and love. There are funny moments and not-so-funny ones, too. Oh, and Santa Claus. :) I hope you enjoy it!

The man obviously spit-shines his shoes. Leonard is a tiny reflection in them, right near the tips. It makes him feel insignificant, and that makes him angry.

"Do you care to explain what happened?" the impeccably dressed man with the shiny dress shoes is saying. "Mr. McCoy... Mr. McCoy?"

"No," Leonard mutters.

"Excuse me?"

"No," he reiterates, finally meeting the gaze that has been intent upon him since he had been herded into the room, "I don't care to explain." It's a very childish part of him that tacks on a bit spitefully, "And who in their right mind wears a waistcoat when responding to an emergency?"

Leonard's current (and probably soon-to-be-ex) employer recoils the tiniest amount, pressing his mouth into a thin line.

Across the room, someone sighs.

Leonard grips the armrests of his wooden chair and refuses to acknowledge anyone else. It's better for all of them this way.

His affronted boss begins again. "Without a satisfactory explanation, you force my hand."

"So fire me."

This time the aggravation for which Leonard is responsible is audible. "I assure you I do not bluff."

"Yeah, well, it's almost Christmas anyway." Leonard pulls out one red glove and a curly white beard from a sack he had made a point to bring for this conversation. "If I'm out a few days early, what's it matter?"

"It will matter when you do not receive your paycheck."

Leonard straightens, hardly able to believe his ears. "Is that a threat? I worked the last three days! You have to pay me for that."

The bastard cocks an eyebrow. "You did not read the fine print of your employment contract." 

It isn't a question.

Leonard may be in deep shit, but that's a low blow. Balling up the glove in his hand, he considers how quickly he can bridge the distance between them. "Listen here. All things aside, I worked. I get paid. You don't pay, and I'll sue you!"

The bastard cocks his _other_ eyebrow.

Leonard comes up out of his chair, then.

This time, the person who sighs also raises his both of his hands in a gesture of peace-making. "Whoa, enough," he says to Leonard and Leonard's adversary. "Bones, put down the glove."

"Not until I slap him with it!" Leonard snarls.

"I find your violent demeanor to be cliché," is the arrogant rejoinder.

"Bite me," snaps the would-be Santa Claus.

The third man begins to edge between them. "Guys, let's talk it out—and for the record, I find it extremely awkward that I'm the rational one here."

" _Shut up, Jim_ ," they say.

Jim, as identified by his companions, pauses to blink and consider the fact that (dual order aside) he has been told to shut up.

He surprises them by saying, "On one condition."

Leonard is not alone when he confronts Jim with a wary eye.

"What's the condition?" he asks.

Jim tucks his hands into his jacket pockets and looks particularly smug. "That you shake hands."

"No."

"You're crazy!"

Jim's smugness remains undiminished.

Leonard eyes the fool a moment longer before he turns back to the man he still wants to slap. "I don't like you, Spock," he says. "However, I like Jim even less." He sticks out his hand.

Spock just looks at the hand.

"Think of it as the lesser of two evils," Leonard adds persuasively.

"And after the handshake?"

Leonard looks the man dead in the eyes. "After Jim shuts up, I'll tell you what happened."

They shake hands.

Leonard takes his seat again, this time putting everything back into the sack, tying it off, and setting it down between his feet.

Jim murmurs, "Thank god." Leonard and Spock turn as one to stare at him, and he obligingly mimes zipping his mouth before he sits himself in a cross-legged position on top of Spock's desk.

Leonard sighs through his nose and begins his tale of woe.

 

_"Four score and seven—no, wait, only two weeks ago..."_

 

Leonard Horatio McCoy is hired to play Santa Claus for the ninth consecutive year in a row. 

In a way, he almost doesn't believe it. It's not the worst job he could have; it's just that he is the worst at it. Yet, as he accepts his costume from a skeptical woman with the name tag of Nyota Uhura, something in him relaxes that has been coiled up tight for nearly a year.

"If it doesn't fit," he is told, "just let me know. I can reorder the suit in your size."

"In Santa's size," Leonard corrects. "I didn't grow a potbelly this year, sorry. Got something I can use for that?"

The woman's lips twitch. "We have a series of pregnancy bellies for our female mannequins."

Leonard grimaces. Santa's not carrying _that_ kind of package in his abdomen, just a lot of cookie-dough fat. "I'll think of something," he hedges.

"You do that," she says, looking down at her watch. "Mr. Spock told me that you start on Friday. Please come in an hour before we open and I will walk you through the setup. He tells me you're an experienced Claus. Since I doubt the way we do things is any different than other Santa Lines, you should be fine."

Leonard doesn't need the reassurance if that's what she is attempting to do for him but he nods anyway. "Friday, an hour early. Got it." After turning away, he doesn't quite manage to make it to the door before her voice reaches him again.

"Oh, and Mr. McCoy?"

He glances back at her.

"Mr. Spock has likely explained the rules but let me outline them for you once more: we expect punctuality and—" Here, her eyes rake over him. "—a suitably festive appearance."

He quirks an eyebrow. "Will you be my superior?"

The question seems to take her by surprise. "No. Mr. Spock likes to oversee a majority of departments in the store himself, yours included." 

That's a good thing, Leonard thinks. She's probably a hardass, and the first time he meanders in smelling of some kind of liquor, she won't hesitate to toss him out on his ear. 

Uhura's eyes narrow at him slightly as if she can guess what he is thinking.

"Friday morning," he says again, anxious to be out from under her stare. "Early." And then he is gone, whatever else the woman might have said kept at bay by the swish of department store doors as they spit Leonard out into a parking lot.

He stops just beyond the first row of cars to take in the environment. There's a coolness to the air that does not irritate his bones. Maybe he should have come to the Sunshine State sooner. Winter here might be tolerable this year.

When one hand unerringly finds an item in his pocket, a token, he grasps it momentarily before letting it go. 

Well, Leonard amends silently, as tolerable as any Christmas can be to a man like him.

~~~

The motel is cheap, and like all motels inviting only in price. There is a lull of voices, his neighbors, through the wall. He can't quite make out the conversation, but that's a good thing. Neighbors who yell mean trouble, and while Leonard may be living a motel for the entirety of December, he didn't come here to buy trouble.

He opens his duffel bag and contemplates the contents before digging out a sweatshirt and zipping it shut again. The bag contains nothing valuable, at least not beyond the meager set of clothing he brought, and so there is no need to do anything other than drop it to the floor. 

Through the years, he has learned a few things about the world that an idyllic childhood had never taught him: you never own something that you can't live without, and you never expect someone won't covet what you do own. The unpleasant truth of temporary living on the poorer side of a city is that no one thinks much about jimmying open a lock to help themselves to someone else's belongings; moreover, nobody will bother to report it.

"It's just a month," he reminds his reflection in the cracked mirror about the dresser. Then he is moving on, finding somewhere else that he can be a real person again while his wound is open and draining—until the next season, that is.

Until next season.

The man in the mirror smiles thinly, with no amusement whatsoever. He doesn't believe in hope or the future. As of now, he is St. Nick.

~~~

Bright and early makes a man want to kill somebody. Leonard steps out the bus with one heavy footfall at a time, his customary scowl doubly foreboding. He drained the last drop of gas station coffee out of his paper cup around half an hour ago and has been gnawing on the cup's edge ever since.

With a temper brewing like a storm cloud, he strides for the employee entrance by a loading dock at the back of the department store. The wide metal door is rolled halfway up, an indication that someone has probably been on site long before Leonard was blinking sleepily in the shower. 

As if his thoughts conjure the ghost of that person, something hits the inside of the dock door with a clank before it drops to the concrete, rolls to the edge and drops the pavement below. Not a moment later a small man comes scuttling out after it, jumps down from the dock ledge and plucks it up, turning back to bellow through the gap, "You missed me!" Then he cackles and chucks the object back into the darkness of the warehouse.

Leonard, having stopped to take this all in, pivots away and quickens his pace as he heads for the side door.

But he's been noticed.

"Hey, you!"

Leonard grunts a tiny "Hi" as he jerks on the door handle of the employee entrance.

"Hello there, wait, don't—"

Instead of the door opening beyond more than a thin sliver, a blaring alarm goes off in the warehouse.

"—open that."

"Shit," Leonard curses, stepping back to cover his ears. "What the hell?"

"Keenser!" the man cries into the warehouse, then makes a beeline for Leonard. He puts his shoulder against the door and wedges it shut again. The alarm doesn't cease to wail, however.

"You can't use this. It's for emergencies only."

Leonard rounds on the man. "Then why the hell does it say Employee Entrance!"

The man scratches at his head. "Don't know... as a joke?"

Leonard starts to snarl but catches himself in time and gives the door a last glare before heading to the open docking bay. He ignores the guy on his heels as he stalks up the concrete stairs and into the building.

"So..." his new companion says as they make their way around pallets and boxes, "you're Santa?"

Leonard grunts.

"Is that a yes? Because I heard from Keenser, who heard from William, who heard from Christine, who heard from the boss lady, that Santa Claus is a hot thing this year." The fellow pauses to consider what he just said. "Uh, maybe that was 'hottie'? I'm not sure. Things get lost in translation."

Leonard stops walking and turns on the man. "Are you gay?"

"What?" The guy blinks at him owlishly until the question registers. "What! No, not me!"

"Then don't call me a hottie." His brows draw together. "You know what? Even if you are gay, _don't call me a hottie_. Got it?"

To Leonard's surprise, the guy grabs his arm before he can walk away.

"If you've got a problem, by which I mean a prejudice," he says in all seriousness to Leonard, "then you might as well turn in your suit to the office and leave."

That makes Leonard curious. "Why?"

"One, it ain't nice and, two, if the boss lady hears you, she'll put one of her really pointy high heels up your ass."

"Again, why?" he asks.

The man flushes. "Because this is a hate-free zone, okay?"

"You mean nobody hates anybody here?" he says sarcastically. "Not even the management? Well, color me surprised."

"You're a strange one."

Leonard snorts and shakes off the man's grip. "I've been called worse." He jerks his thumb in the direction of a set of doors. "Will that take me into the store?"

His guide crosses his arms in a show of stubborn silence.

"Whatever," Leonard mutters and heads for the doors anyway.

"Hey," comes from behind him a few seconds later, "you didn't tell me your name!"

"You guessed it already—it's Santa!" he yells back, and punches through the swinging doors to the other side.

~~~

Mr. Spock is a tall, wraith-like man with dark hair and an unnerving stare. It appears that he is also a stickler for rules.

"You are four minutes late," he announces when Leonard enters his office.

"Met some nutbar in your warehouse," Leonard shoots back. "FYI, your Employee Entrance is jammed."

The merest of frowns touches the manager's face before vanishing. "Thank you for telling me. I will have it looked into."

"Which one: the nutbar or the door?"

"The door," Mr. Spock replies firmly.

"Then who's the nutbar?"

"That description is not amusing, Mr. McCoy." The tall man angles away slightly to pick up a sheaf of papers from his desk. "I suspect you met our engineer, Mr. Scott."

Leonard makes a face. "Why does a department store need an engineer?"

Spock turns back to him, looking nonplussed. "His work is not your business, Mr. McCoy. If you will have a seat—" He motions to a chair. "—I require only a moment of your time to go over your contract of employment. Then Nyota, whom you met at the time of your hiring, will show you to the area in which you will be stationed for a majority of the day."

Leonard doesn't sit, instead waving his hand in dismissal. "I've signed at least a dozen contracts in my day, Mr. Spock. I'm dressing up as an old man who makes toys for a living. It's not rocket science. I say, 'ho ho', kids drool on me, then you pay me."

Mr. Spock only blinks at him. "I believe it is 'ho ho ho'."

"I don't find that amusing, Mr. Spock," Leonard responds smartly. 

The man waits another moment (for god knows what, Leonard wonders) before offering him an ink pen and the final page of the contract. Leonard scribbles his name on the dotted line and drops the pen back to the desk. 

"Lead the way," he says.

Mr. Spock obliges him as far as the door where, apparently, Nyota Uhura has been waiting the entire time. She and Mr. Spock exchange a single glance, one which Leonard pointedly ignores. He lets Nyota catch up to him.

~~~

"And that," his tour guide concludes, "is the scene."

Leonard eyes the polished sleigh, glittery green-gold festivities and lush-red carpet. "Lovely," he remarks in his flattest tone.

There is a moment in which Leonard feels like he is being scrutinized very deeply. Then Nyota says, "You don't like it, do you?"

He shrugs. "It's better than some scenes I've worked in."

"Ah," she murmurs, her tone knowing. "Then it's not the decorations themselves. Why would you play Santa Claus if you hate Christmas?"

He starts at that and stares at her.

She shrugs, like he did, and lifts a hand to catch the attention of an employee trying to straighten a fake Christmas tree. When he comes over, she introduces him. "Pavel Chekov, meet Leonard McCoy—or should I say, Santa Claus?"

"Santa!" Pavel says excitedly, pumping Leonard's hand. "I am wery glad to see you! Do you like my sleigh?"

"It's great," Leonard replies, because Pavel's angelic face and wide, innocent eyes caution him that he would be a terrible person to say otherwise—that, and the sharp warning in Nyota's gaze. "It's great," he says again. "The sleigh. I'm sitting there?"

"Vell..." murmurs Pavel, letting go of Leonard's hand to stroke his chin in a thoughtful manner. "I debate, you see. Ze sleigh or ze chair." He indicated a huge wooden monstrosity covered in red velour and sprinkled liberally with fake snow.

Leonard grimaces.

"No chair?" Pavel guesses.

"No snow," corrects Leonard. "It gets into the suit."

"...Oh!" Pavel claps his hands. "I can do zat!"

Leonard watches in amazement as Pavel begins to shake off the snow from the red coverlet. 

"He's our showcase designer," Nyota tells Leonard, amused. "Better than anyone you'll find at the chain stores."

Leonard blows out a breath. "So I'm not supposed to offend him?"

"You couldn't if you tried. He likes it when people challenge his work."

Pavel is, in fact, at that moment rearranging the drape of the coverlet and humming a Christmas tune.

Leonard is allergic to Christmas tunes. They make him itch. He faces in the opposite direction and wills his mind to block the music out. Nyota moves around him, fetching other workers who will be on the set with him and introducing them. Leonard offers a gruff "Hello" to each one and little else. Out of the corner of his eye, he spies someone he is certain he has seen before—multiple times, in fact, since he and Nyota walked out onto the sales floor.

He points out the man lurking behind the clothes rack and raises his voice, demanding, "Who's that?"

Nyota turns to look—and smiles. "Our security officer. Hikaru!"

Hikaru melts backwards in the men's clothing section and out of their sight.

"Friendly muck," comments Leonard.

"Sulu takes his job very seriously," says Nyota. "Plus, you're new. If you have any problems..."

Or if he causes problems... Leonard can read between the lines.

"...Sulu will handle it. Quite a large crowd can gather here, you know, at the Santa Line. But he's been with us for a while. It won't faze him."

Leonard says, "Sure, good to know," like he cares and runs a hand through his hair. "Guess I'd better suit up."

"You should. We open in twenty minutes. Remember—"

"Oh, I know," Leonard interrupts her. "Be jolly. Entertain the kids, and help their parents spend their cash while they're here."

Nyota smiles. "Yes, exactly that. Good luck."

Leonard bares his teeth and hopes she accepts the grimace as his version of a smile.

 _Time to start the show,_ he thinks.

Yes, it's more than time.

~~~

"Ho ho," Santa Claus says to his first customer of the season.

The little girl instantly bursts into tears.

Santa closes his eyes, counts to ten, then starts to bounce his knee.

The girl child's bawling quiets to wet sniffles.

"Ho ho ho," Leonard tries again. "Merry Christmas!"

She reaches up, quick as only little children can be, and pulls off his beard. Then she giggles after she lets it go and it snaps back into place.

Leonard knows better than to say _ow._ The little brat will only torture him more if she hears that.

He hands her off to a female elf with the declaration, "Done. Next!"

~~~

He had almost forgotten how tiring it can be to pander to children. Almost.

The ache in his bones is a reminder that one day he will be of an age to play a proper Santa Claus. The ache in his heart is different, and luckily only brief. 

Leonard strips down to a plain t-shirt, leaving on the over-sized red pants and black shiny boots rather than changing completely, and heads out into the adjoining mall for a lunch break. The food court isn't much since the mall itself is rather small and out-dated, but he's satisfied to find a fast food chain that sells something green. Picking at the limp lettuce in his salad, Leonard stretches out his legs and thinks of nothing for a whole thirty minutes.

The watch on his wrist, somewhere in the middle between cheap and expensive, chimes softly when his lunch break is nearly up. Leonard dumps his half-eaten salad into a disposal bin and walks back to the department store currently employing him.

On the way, he passes by a community board of flyers. He slows down as he sees one for a local bar and grill and tears it off the wall, folding it into a small square that fits neatly into the palm of his hand. Only when he reaches the store front does he hesitate and turn back to the nearest trash canister to let the flyer float to the bottom. 

He is a minute late for his shift, but the dark shadow of Mr. Spock standing in archway of Customer Service says nothing to him. Thus Leonard dons the Santa suit and returns to the children.

~~~

The afternoon crowd grows and grows until it's teeming with small, noise-making humans and larger, even more impatient ones. Leonard can only work so fast, and thus the line can only move in tandem with him. It doesn't matter how parents shift on their feet and transfer their children from hip to hand and back again. The first day is always the busiest for some odd reason. Leonard has often thought that while little kids love seeing Santa, their parents dread it like a chore.

And maybe it is. At least, for Leonard it is.

He accepts his fifth fidgety youngster in a row and says, "Ho ho."

"Merry Christmas!" the youngster supplies for him.

"Yeah," agrees Leonard dourly. "So, what do you want for the holidays, kid?"

"A reindeer!"

"I don't do live animals."

The child's lower lip wobbles. "But..."

"No," Leonard tells him firmly. "And especially not a reindeer. I need those."

The wobble disappears. "Oh, okay. 'Cause you have to bring my presents, right?"

"Something like that," Leonard mutters beneath his fluffy white beard. "Tell me something else that you want."

"Um...Um. Um, um, um."

To the boy it probably looks like Leonard is smiling. Leonard isn't.

"Um."

"C'mon now," Santa coaxes. "Santa has seen a lot of boys and girls today and his back is killing him."

"Um."

"Kid..."

"UM."

"SAY IT!" Leonard barks, his patience at an end.

The wobble comes back, followed by a wail.

Leonard closes his eyes.

He almost made it one day. What would she think?

He stops that thought before a worse one follows it and opens his eyes. "Santa's sorry," he tells the crying child in his lap.

Of course, that hardly matters when the parent is already glaring at him like he's a criminal, and—

Oh Christ.

Why is Sulu coming up onto the stage?

In a quiet tone, the security guard asks the mother, "Is there a problem?"

"Where'd you come from?" Leonard wants to know.

One of the helper Elves, the one with a name tag that says Janice, is already extricating the upset child from Leonard's lap.

Sulu's gaze strays to Leonard, and Leonard narrows his own. Why does he have the feeling that the man wants to drag him off his Santa chair in handcuffs?

Well, it wouldn't be the first time some punk has taken a disliking to him. 

Leonard says loudly enough for half of the store to hear, "Ho there, Officer! And what would a big boy like you want for Christmas?"

Sulu plucks his walkie-talkie off his belt and says into it, "Sir, I think we have a problem at the Santa line."

The mother chimes in, "That man raised his voice to my child! I want a refund!"

Leonard pinches the bridge of his nose. 

Suddenly, Nyota is there, talking to the woman in a sweet voice. Leonard can't make out all that she's saying as she leads the mother and child away, but it's obvious she is promising some kind of compensation.

Sulu lingers only a second longer, giving Leonard a last _I've got my eye on you, pal_ stare before he steps off the stage and pulls his vanishing act.

The Elves are putting up the fifteen-minute break sign. Leonard's stomach sinks but he obeys the unspoken directive to remove himself. As he is trudging towards the Employee Only sign at the back of the store, someone slips into step beside him.

"Mr. McCoy."

"Mr. Spock," Leonard returns the greeting.

"If you please, see me for a moment in my office."

That isn't really a request. Leonard removes his cap and replies, "Fine. Let's get this over with."

It is early in the season yet. There will be somewhere else that he can go if this store throws him out. But he doesn't like the realization that the knot in his stomach is born of a worry that he might have jeopardized his chance to be Santa this year. 

Mr. Spock's office is no different than it was that morning. The desk is free of clutter; the business calendar on the wall is filled with tiny, cramped writing; every piece of paper, pencil, and pen has its place. Leonard has met meticulous people before, but Mr. Spock's orderliness seems to border on compulsive.

 _Not seems—is_ , Leonard amends as the store manager adjusts the angle of an empty chair to mirror its twin perfectly before he invites Leonard to sit down.

Leonard takes a seat and while Mr. Spock's back is turned knocks the second chair slightly out of line with the toe of his boot.

The man in front of him stiffens at the damning scraping sound without turning around. "That," comes his murmur, "will be another point."

"What?"

"Please correct the chair, Mr. McCoy."

 _Damn,_ Leonard thinks. This guy might really have eyes in the back of his head! 

Being naturally ornery, Leonard waits a handful of seconds before straightening the chair. Mr. Spock then pulls something out of a file cabinet and comes back to him.

"This," he says, holding up a laminated poster board with a row of five squares and Leonard's name printed across the top, "is your Misconduct Chart."

"Say what?"

"Your Misconduct Chart, Mr. McCoy." Spock retrieves a marker from his pen holder and uncaps it. "Each box can contain up to five marks. Each time you are tardy to an event, you will receive one point." He draws two tally marks in the first box. "For poor presentation or refusal to comply with our policies, you will receive one point." He seems to debate over this briefly but ultimately does not mark the chart. "And, of course, for the inability to perform your job—in this case with regard to the Santa line—you will receive two to three points, depending on the severity. If the customer cannot be placated, that is an additional point. When all five boxes are filled, your contract with us is terminated."

Halfway through this explanation, Leonard's mouth has dropped open. Now he shuts it with a click, and explodes, " _Are you insane?!_ "

Spock blinks at him and slowly, oh so slowly, draws another tally mark on the chart.

Leonard leaps out his chair and snatches the chart from Spock. "This isn't kindergarten!" he shouts, flapping it angrily in Spock's face. "You can't wrist-slap for bad behavior!"

Spock cocks his head. "Would you prefer an actual wrist-slap?"

This guy is out of his mind! Leonard jerks the marker out of Spock's hand and fills in all the boxes. "There," he snarls, shoving the chart back into the crazy man's chest, "I'm the _worst_ Santa you've ever had! Satisfied?"

Spock looks consternated. "You ruined your chart, Mr. McCoy. Making another one will cost you one point."

Leonard can only stare at him. Finally he drops back into his chair and grabs his head with his hands. It is some time before he can coherently ask, "How many do I have so far?"

"Four marks," Spock replies.

"Shouldn't it be more than that?"

"Today's incident in the Line will not count against you."

Leonard sits up straight. "Why not?"

"Interesting. In this instance, most employees would thank me."

"I'm not most employees," Leonard counters. "I want to know why."

Spock's gaze leaves him, then, and travels to various spots around the room. Whatever he is searching for, he apparently does not find. "I have been told," he says at last, "that one's first day on the job can be trying. Therefore I will consider your outburst to be... due to stress. But take care to control yourself in the future, Mr. McCoy."

"Right," Leonard mutters. "The fifteen minutes are almost up." He comes to his feet. "Am I dismissed, sir?"

His employer nods.

"Great," he says flatly, stuffing his cap back onto his head. Leonard returns to his work without further ado.

He passes Sulu coming through the main office from the store front. Once behind Leonard, the guard clicks on his radio as the swinging door is closing and reports, "He's returning to the floor, sir."

Leonard grinds his back teeth all the way to the Christmas set.

~~~

At the end of his first day, Leonard gladly changes out of his Claus costume and shoves it into the locker assigned to him. He checks for his wallet and the small cell phone that he carries before hurrying to catch the last bus for the night. He bumps into someone on their way into the store and pauses long enough to warn him, "We're closing in ten minutes."

The guy grins back at him and claims cockily, "I know."

Leonard snorts, thinking that isn't worth a response. Then he is on his way again, breaking into a run across the parking lot, having spied the bus coming down the highway for its final run.

It's possible the person yelling out behind him "See you soon!" is actually calling to Leonard, but Leonard's thoughts are preoccupied enough that he doesn't pay him any heed.


	2. Santa Hates Christmas

"I didn't tell anybody," Montgomery Scott says to Leonard the next day as Leonard climbs in through the open warehouse.

"Tell 'em what?" Leonard grunts, dusting off dirt and fresh sawdust from his jeans.

Scott leans close and, after a furtive glance at their surroundings, whispers, "About you hating gays." He rocks back. "That's an automatic dismissal, you know."

Leonard purses his mouth. "Since when did I say I hated them?"

"Yesterday, you—"

Pushing past the idiot, Leonard stalks away from the docking bay. "You made an assumption. I don't hate homosexuals." He comes to a standstill and turns on the man. "I hate _all_ people. Now quit following me!"

"Oh, okay. That's different." He beams at Leonard. "Pleased to meet you, lad! Call me Monty. Although, some people around here call me Scotty but I don't encourage that."

There's a headache brewing behind Leonard's eyes that has nothing to do with his lack of coffee this morning. "I can't talk to you. I'm going to be late."

"Then you should come in a little earlier! I like new people. And sandwiches." Monty looks at Leonard with interest. "Did you bring a sandwich for lunch?"

Leonard starts to say something and decides it's just not worth it. He waves his hand in the universal sign of _just leave me alone_ and picks up his pace into the store until he is nearly jogging.

Monty doesn't come after him. The fool just waves his hand in return, clearly having mistaken Leonard's gesture to be friendly.

~~~

Leonard eyes the boy placed in his lap and says quite un-enthusiastically, "Ho ho."

The boy eyes him back.

Sensing that they might already be at a stalemate, he asks, "What do you want for Christmas?"

"What are you offering?"

Leonard has encountered plenty of children in his days as Santa Claus: happy children, sad children, angry children, sweetly naive children. This is his first negotiator. 

"That depends on what you want. Well?" he encourages after a pause, somewhat curious despite himself.

The child gives the Santa Claus suit and sideways cap a once-over with a very critical eye. He decides, "I am not sure that you can meet my needs. You look poor."

 _Oh geez,_ Leonard thinks. He catches sight of the boy's parent standing to one side, a bluetooth clip attached to one ear and her right foot tapping with impatience as she talks. Whether she is berating an assistant elf for something or speaking on the phone he cannot tell. "Is that your mother?" he questions.

The boy barely casts a glance at her. "Do you want my list or not?"

"I'll tell you what, kid: the only thing I'm going to give you for Christmas is an attitude-check." He scoops the boy off his lap and drops him to his feet. "Next," he says, motioning for Janice to bring forth the slobbery-looking monster waiting for a turn.

The boy looks outraged. "But I didn't tell you what I want!"

"Sometimes what a person wants and what a person deserves are not the same thing. Now, keep aggravating me, and I'll bring you a lump of coal." 

The kid turns away and pelts down the steps, crying " _MOM!_ " at the top of his lungs.

Leonard jerks the next child into his lap, drool and all, and demands hurriedly, "Ho ho, I'm Santa Claus. What you do want for Christmas?"

The boy, much younger than his predecessor, regards Leonard with wide eyes. "I've been good, Santa," he says.

"I didn't ask that, but okay. Nice to know. What do you want?" Leonard eyes the woman who has finally ended her phone call and given her attention to her upset son. "And make it quick. Santa needs a bathroom break."

"I want Emmett."

"I don't know who Emmett is."

"He's a Lego man."

"Okay, so you want Legos."

"No," the child insists, "I want Emmett!"

"Okay, okay, Lego Emmett for Christmas," Leonard agrees hastily as the mother slowly turns in his direction with an aggressive stance. He jumps out of the chair, boy in hand, and foists the delighted, squealing child onto another adult. "Santa is taking a fifteen-minute break!" he bellows down the line and then hops off the stage, waddling as quickly as he can in his baggy red suit to the nearest exit. He doesn't look back because he is fairly certain there is a dragon-lady in pursuit and the price for getting caught will be his balls.

~~~

Spock docks him for the fuming mother and child, and when he tries to argue, Nyota shows up and hauls him back out into public.

"I know some of these kids can be aggravating but try to do better."

He debates arguing with her (since Spock won't listen to reason) but Nyota just rolls her eyes and orders an elf named Geoff to frog-march him back to his Santa's Chair (or whatever Pavel has dubbed the damn thing). 

"I could quit right now," he threatens.

Nobody appears to be listening.

A child is placed into his lap. Leonard grabs the tot to still the squirming and, much aggrieved, begins his routine. At least this one isn't so bad, despite the near-constant, excited wriggles. He listens with half an ear to a long list of toys the child wants, said with the cutest lisp, and pats the top of the child's head at the end, declaring, "Everything—Santa will bring you everything."

The father looks at him in horror as he retrieves his happy child, and Leonard offers up his best shit-eating grin.

Then he turns that grin onto Nyota, who is observing him, and gives her a thumbs-up. It is a long while before she decides he is capable on his own.

Later he will come to wish that she hadn't left.

~~~

Leonard has taken to massaging the space between his eyebrows in the thirty seconds that his lap is free of children. It's because of this that he is not paying attention to the disturbance in the line, much less to the appearance of his next visitor.

The person who plops himself into Leonard's lap is much heavier than a child.

Leonard's first reaction is to gape; his second reaction is to shove the grinning man to the floor.

But the fool is quick-witted enough to latch onto the armrests of the chair a second in advance of Leonard's violent push.

" _Get off_ ," Leonard snaps.

"Santa!" crows the man.

Somebody in the crowd gasps; others, namely the children, giggle.

Leonard lowers his voice to a menacing growl. "Get—off—my—lap."

"Santa, I have a question," insists his adult-sized guest.

"And I have a fist with your name on it, buddy."

"It's Jim." The grinning Jim leans in to grin wider. "James Tiberius Kirk. Santa, I have a _really_ important question for you."

This is just the icing on the cake in a typically bad day. He can tell by the glint in James Tiberius Kirk's blue eyes that Kirk intends to stay where he is until Leonard plays along.

And, damn it, Leonard is going to have to cave! That is pretty evident in the way Sulu, the supposedly uptight security guard, is hanging back by the giant candy cane props, smirking.

Leonard's throat works once with internal rage, but he manages to sound polite when he asks, "What's your question, Jim?"

"Why is Christmas special?"

 _It's not._ Leonard presses his mouth flat as he looks past Jim's shoulder to the raptly attentive children.

"Why is Christmas special?" Jim repeats.

Leonard is going to throttle this man once he's out of his Santa suit. He smiles. 

"It's a time for families—and for good little girls and boys!" he sings for the privilege of tiny listening ears. "It's a time for presents and for joys! Now who wants to sit on Santa's lap?"

He's greeted by a chorus of screaming, excited children.

Beneath the din of noise, Leonard whispers for Jim's ears only: "You're dead, mister. _Dead._ "

Leonard motions for the nearest elf to remove Jim from his lap. 

Jim hops off himself and then bops down the stage steps. He turns back to wave and cry, "Bye, Santa Claus! Bye!"

Leonard balls his gloved hands into fists. 

If he sees that guy again, he is going to make good on the promise of punching him.

"Santa, Santa, Santa!" chants a girl-child as she is brought over to him.

Some of his irritation fades when he sees her brown ringlet curls. She grins as he takes her, revealing two missing front teeth.

Without warning, Leonard's heart pounds against his ribs. 

"Santa?" she says one more time but questioningly.

"Sweetheart," he murmurs, shifting her stocking-clad legs to comfortably lay across his own, "tell Santa what you want for Christmas."

She grins that gap-toothed smile at him again, and he listens to her babble, the small hurt in him finally beginning to wake up properly for the season.

~~~

As if meeting Jim Kirk is a catalyst of some kind, Leonard begins to see the creepy fellow everywhere. One minute a tall blond in a Christmas sweater is cruising by Housewares; another minute, there's a sales clerk that could be Jim's twin trying to woo a lady at the makeup counter. Leonard thinks he spies Kirk's shadow lurking in the food court during lunch break, and later on he sees an outline of the man skate by Mr. Spock's closed office door.

"It's that perp!" Leonard cries, pointing his finger at the figure fading into the distance through the opaque glass of the door's window.

Hands folded and head tilted ever-so-slightly, the store manager regards Leonard with unusual interest. "Who, Mr. McCoy?"

Leonard's eyebrows draw together. "I thought one of your lackeys would have reported it by now. A man—a full-grown _idiot_ of a man—cut through the Santa line and sat on my lap."

Spock says, "Hm," which is about as vague as a reply can get.

Leonard slaps his palm on the top of the manager's desk. "I think he's stalking me, Spock. I want you to handle it."

"Mr. Spock," Spock corrects.

Leonard snorts. " _Mr._ Spock. My point is... either you handle it or _I_ will."

"Hm," Spock says again, but this time he steeples his fingers and sits back in an expensive-looking leather chair. "Has this person accosted you?"

"He SAT in my lap."

"Perhaps he paid to sit in your lap like everyone else."

Leonard sputters and stands up. Deciding he will get nowhere if his bastard of boss is going to purposefully play evasive, Leonard stomps to the office door and tears it open.

"Mr. McCoy," Spock calls from behind him.

Leonard only grunts, a _maybe I'll listen and maybe I won't_.

"If Mr. Kirk does prove to be distracting, I will take care of the issue. I give you my word."

Leonard narrows his eyes. There's something weird about that promise, but he can't quite put his finger on it. He is a bit grateful, however, to know that his employer isn't simply going to ignore his concern. So he nods and politely (well, as polite as he is capable of being) shuts the office door on his way out.

~~~

The second day ends a little less dramatically than the first, barring the unpleasant encounter with the guy who thinks he is hilarious for making a joke of Santa Claus. Leonard hasn't seen Jim since he really started looking for the man (right after he left Spock's office), and in a way that is disappointing. It would be nice to have somebody to punch just then.

He plays the voicemail left on his cell phone which he discovers during his ride back to the motel. At first, he assumes it must be his mother calling to check on him and maybe to beg him to come home for the holidays.

But when the message starts to play, Leonard's fingers freeze over the phone buttons.

" _...Len_ ," a woman says, her voice all-at-once as weary as he remembers and ironically somehow more alive, " _don't... don't hang up. You probably already figured that your mother gave me this number. Don't be mad at her, okay? You know how tenacious I am when I want something._ " She laughs a little, the sound so familiar that Leonard lets his head hang forward, suddenly too tired to keep it upright. " _Sorry. Len—Leonard, it's just—I wanted to wish you a happy..._ " She stops, starts again. " _Sorry. I'm thinking of you. I hope you don't mind. Keep in touch._ "

The voicemail ends. Leonard lets the cell phone sit between his hands for a long time before he plays the message again.

That, more than anything, more than the season and the little girl with brown curls, is what finally breaks his control.

~~~

Monty takes Leonard aside the next day and with extreme haste forces a concoction down his throat that will "cure yer ails 'fore the boss lady gets a whiff of you."

Leonard chokes on it (the stuff tastes like licorice and old shoes) but Monty isn't letting him go until all of it is down his gullet.

"There you go," says the man, patting Leonard's back as he coughs and spits afterwards. "It's a nasty taste, all right, but it'll sober you up in five seconds flat."

Leonard already feels too sober for his own liking. He spits one last time before straightening his spine and glaring at his unwanted helper. "I was fine as I was!" he snarls.

"You weren't walking a straight line," counters the other man. "Must of hit a bottle or three last night."

And maybe one this morning. Once the corner is turned, it's like a tidal wave sweeps Leonard away. But he doesn't care. He'll sober up later, much later. When summer is waning.

Instinctively he reaches into the back pocket of his jeans. His hand comes up empty.

Monty is watching him too closely so Leonard wipes his palm on his thigh. 

"I'm late," he mutters. 

Monty sighs and turns away. "Aye."

Surprising himself, Leonard calls out to the retreating man. When Monty looks back with a question on his face, Leonard clears his throat and hazards a thank you.

"Don't mention it."

Leonard nods.

Monty breaks into a grin. "No, really, lad—don't mention it. It'd be my head!"

"The boss lady?" Leonard guesses, having figured out at some point that 'boss lady' refers to the somewhat terrifying Uhura.

"Eh," Monty says, shrugging a shoulder. "Yes and no."

Not explaining that any further, Monty leaves Leonard to find his own way to the employee locker room.

~~~

Leonard has washed up as best he can because frankly he has smelled himself as a boozy Santa Claus before and it isn't his intention to be arrested before lunch. There are still days left in December but he has to last until the end. Now that he feels committed to this store in particular (for whatever reason that may be), he has to curb his habit enough to stay gainfully employed.

At least, that is, until he is completely useless. Then things can start again, even if that occurs months later.

He doesn't remember starting the cycle. The behavior just made sense at the time. It fed his despair. It pushed him to the brink, and when he had finally climbed back up to the edge again, those first few times, he realized he wasn't ever going to make it farther before he fell again. That's the curse of addiction, he has been told. The moment he figures out how to go beyond the edge, the moment he wants to, will be the first real step towards recovery. Until that time, it's all lies.

Leonard rubs the material of his scratchy red sleeve against the skin of his cheekbone and wishes Santa in Florida could be the cool Beach Santa who wore sunglasses. The bright overhead lights of the department store are particularly painful to a man with a hangover. The eye drops he took that morning have at least cleared up some of the redness.

Today's children don't seem to care that he looks like death and smells of too much cheap cologne. They are as enthusiastic as ever, clinging to his coat and pulling at his fake beard and asking curious questions. Because he isn't in his topmost form, he makes the effort to be inconspicuous. He plays a rather nice Santa, even once and a while tweaking one of the tykes on the nose (if said nose isn't runny).

Then it all comes to a screeching halt when he catches sight of one face.

Santa tucks his current child into the crook his arm and leans partially out of his chair to grab the attention of his helper elf. "Hey, do you see him?"

"Huh?"

" _Him_ ," hisses Leonard, pointing out the blond head near the back of the line.

"Who?"

"Him, damn it! Jim Kirk!"

"Eheheh!" giggles his child. "You said a bad word, Santa!"

"Santa has forgotten his manners, sweetie," replies a not-so-thrilled-looking mother as she pulls her offspring away from Leonard. "Time to go now."

"No!" comes the cry. "No, I wanna stay with _Santa!_ "

Leonard winces because the high-pitched shrill is a little too close to his ear to be tolerable. He waves at the elf to escort the mother and upset child far, far away.

Somehow, in that moment of inattention, his nemesis has made it to the front of the line and has hurried up the steps.

Leonard jumps out of his chair. "No, you don't!"

"Aw," says Jim Kirk. He crowds in close. "Can't I sit with you?"

"Listen up, you pervert," Leonard says, his voice low but intense. "Security is going to be here any second. Why don't you do the smart thing and walk away?"

Jim taps a finger against his chin in thought. "Why?" He answers his own question with "I suppose that would be because you just told me to."

"You son-of-a—!" Leonard catches himself but has already garnered some unwanted attention from a few parents. 

He gives everyone in the line a jaunty little wave, then takes Jim aside in a very mean grip. 

"Get lost," he hisses sharply, pushing Jim to the exit side of the stage before he sits back down in his designated Santa's Chair.

Jim comes sauntering back not a minute later with Leonard's prior child-customer in his arms.

Jim presents the child to him. "You didn't finish with this one." Then, to Leonard's outrage, he sits himself down in Santa's lap with the child in between them.

"Santa, I'm back!" cries the gleeful little tot.

"How nice," Leonard replies through gritted teeth, reaching around behind Jim to grip a handful of hair and yank it.

Jim's eyes go wide but he doesn't utter a single word of complaint.

"Now tell old Santa Claus," Leonard urges the child, "every little thing your heart desires for Christmas. Everything." He meets Jim's eyes. "Santa can sit here all day listening _just like this_."

The child claps and begins to list by heart every item in stock at the local Toys 'R Us.

Jim starts shaking. It takes Leonard a while to comprehend that the idiot is laughing silently.

He determines in that moment that they might be evenly matched, he and this fellow.

For some reason that helps in dispersing the last of his hangover.

~~~

"I figured it out," Leonard says, coming up behind the store manager in the shoe department.

Mr. Spock turns to look at him, querying, "What did you figure out?"

"You knew his name when I never said it."

"Ah." Spock pauses. "My error."

"Damned right," Leonard growls. He glares at a lady who starts to approach the sales counter and she wisely backs up, likely confused as to why Santa Claus is there to begin with. "I want an explanation! Did you sic him on me?"

Spock gestures for Leonard to follow him into the back, where there are extra stores of shoes on racks that tower impressively towards the ceiling. They go to a particular spot that Spock seems to think is best to discuss the situation.

"Mr. Kirk," he tells Leonard, "is a regular here."

"A regular what? Customer? Loiterer?"

"Neither."

A thought occurs to Leonard. "Oh god, he's not the _owner_ , is he?"

"No," Spock replies a bit too quickly. "Jim is not the owner."

Leonard eyes him with suspicion. "You sure? 'Cause you skimped on those details during my interview. I didn't think you were going to actually hire me, so I didn't make a point to call you out on it. But now I'm curious, Spock."

"Mr. Spock."

Leonard ignores that. "Who's _your_ boss? It's not like you're running a chain here. It has to be privately funded, at least to some extent."

"If you become a permanent employee, I will gladly share those details with you."

Leonard takes a step into Spock's personal space. "What are you hiding?"

Spock's eyes become partially hooded. "I do not appreciate your intimidation tactic, Mr. McCoy."

"Yeah? So whatcha gonna do about it?" he challenges.

Spock holds up two fingers. "Penalize you, of course."

A muscle ticks in Leonard's jaw but he closes his mouth and puts a suitable distance between them. "I backed off. No points."

"Two."

"Just one," he argues. "Two, maybe, if there had been physical violence."

Spock's eyebrows shoot up. "In that scenario I would be less concerned with points for misconduct, Mr. McCoy."

Leonard snorts and turns away. "Whatever," he says carelessly. "It doesn't even matter if you did put Kirk on my ass. Tell him to stay away from me. This is my final warning."

"I see. And if he refuses to do as you wish?"

Leonard says to the shadows of the store room darkly, "Then it's no more Mr. Nice Claus." 

He pushes out into the brightly lit shoe department. The lady he had scared off earlier is standing with a sales clerk named Christine. The lady points at him. Christine says something with a knowing nod.

Leonard ignores the women and stomps out of Shoes, unable to properly express his ire.

Why they start to laugh, he can't fathom, and that makes him more unhappy. Sulking in Lawn & Garden until his break is over does little to change his mood.

~~~

That night, alone in his motel room, Leonard pours the last drop of a cheap whiskey into a plastic cup and stares at it. His head is fuzzy, his bones ache, and his ex-wife's voice still haunts him.

"Eight years," he mutters. 

They haven't seen each other for eight years. Why the hell is she thinking of him now?

Why hasn't he thought of her?

She could be married again. She could have another...

He crumples the cup and throws it at the mirror. It bounces off the glass and rolls harmlessly from the dresser to the floor.

The truth hurts. The world is moving on without him. It has been for years.

~~~

"I can't keep doin' this," complains Leonard's companion.

Leonard gags on the foul brew that has been poured into his mouth.

Monty tsks. "And I thought I had problems. My friend, you need to rethink your life choices."

"We're not friends," Leonard says when he can talk again.

Monty pats Leonard's back, arguing, "Sure we are. Who else would work as hard as I do to keep you sober and employed?"

Leonard twists his head to the side to glare at the man. "I've only known you for four days. You need to stop bothering me!"

"Are you still worried that I'm attracted to you?"

He's in Hell. That is the only possible explanation.

Wait. There may be one other explanation: 

"The loony bin."

"What was that, lad?"

Leonard straightens his spine and sighs. "I think you're crazy. All of you. How did I get stuck here?"

Monty blinks at him. "You applied."

"Oh yeah."

The two men stare at each other for some time.

Then, having not solved any mysteries, Leonard says, "Thanks," and turns to leave.

"How about lunch?" Monty asks, causing Leonard to pause in his retreat.

"Lunch?" Leonard repeats dumbly.

"Yeah. I brought sandwiches. I'll give you one if you eat with me."

Leonard eyes him. "I thought you didn't like me."

"I like everybody," Montgomery Scott claims. "Since you hate everybody, I think we're a good match. It's a turkey sandwich."

Leonard likes turkey. And it's free.

"Okay," he decides before he can think better of it. "See you on break."

"Awesome!" comes the pleased reply. "Keenser will be joining us too. He's a little weird but you'll get used to him."

Leonard snorts. Everybody is weird in this place, and no one can convince him otherwise.

~~~

Pavel is a ball of unstoppable energy and good cheer. Leonard grows tired just watching him bounce around the set, adding holiday trinkets and sparkling decorations to an already imaginative Christmas display.

"Don't you have a mannequin to dress?" he complains once Pavel is within earshot.

"That is Ms. Nyota's work," Pavel explains. "She buys everything, and she picks what to display. I decorate!"

"Okay," Leonard says, although he doesn't understand the distinction.

"I made this for you," Pavel goes to say, sweeping his hand in a grand gesture at the chair, sleigh, and assortment of giant Christmas knick-knacks.

Leonard is even more confused. "Okay?"

Pavel beams. "You are ze perfect Santa, Mr. Leonard! I knew Ms. Nyota would pick a good one, and see? I am showing you off!"

"Wait, wait, wait," says Leonard. " _Uhura_ hired me?"

"With Mr. Spock's approval, of course." Pavel leans in to whisper with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, "But Mr. Spock approves everything Ms. Nyota wants."

Is Pavel implying they are a couple?

"Hikaru says he _owes_ Ms. Nyota."

That sounds like an interesting story, but unfortunately one of the subjects in question is making her way over to their little gathering. Pavel proceeds to drape a string of garland around Leonard's neck and admire it, pretending like they hadn't been in the middle of spreading a rumor.

"Pavel," Nyota calls to him, "we just received the shipment of fiberglass reindeer. Monty's waiting for you in the warehouse. You need to approve them before he can take them off the truck."

"The reindeer are here!" Pavel jerks the garland from Leonard, nearly strangling him in the process, and hurries off through the store, presumably to his precious reindeer.

Rubbing his neck, Leonard tells Uhura, "We don't need reindeer."

"Pavel thinks we do." Nyota moves past him, continuing on her way.

Leonard goes after her, catching her by the arm. "Wait a minute, I have a question."

She lifts one perfectly shaped eyebrow. 

"Why me?"

At least she doesn't pretend not to understand the question, but rather than offering the short answer, she turns him around and points to the blonde-haired saleswoman from yesterday counting cash in a register drawer. "Christine has a son whose father left them nearly destitute." She inclines her head in the direction in which that Pavel had just run. "Pavel is artistically gifted but no company who took him on was willing to sponsor his green card. Hikaru, whom you seem to think is overzealous with his handcuffs, couldn't finish the police academy because an injury he sustained in an accident disqualified him. Monty is just... special."

Sulu is disabled? Leonard hasn't noticed anything physically unusual about the man. And why is she more cautious when speaking of the resident 'engineer'?

Yet despite these things he wonders, Leonard does catch her meaning—and he is not certain that he likes it. 

"So you're saying that you think I'm a charity case."

"No," the woman replies. "That's not the point, Leonard. We all need help from others at least once in our lives. The owner of this store tends to support those who have difficulty supporting themselves. Before you take offense, think about that."

She gently removes his hand from her arm and leaves him where he stands to do exactly that.

It is a strange thing that she said, he concludes much later. Looking at the others around him whom Nyota had not mentioned, he cannot help but imagine what circumstances might have brought them this place. And what about the uptight Spock? What makes that man in need of others? 

What about Jim?

That puzzles Leonard most of all. If not to drive him crazy, why is Jim Kirk really here?

~~~

It's a known fact that if one speaks of the devil, he shall appear. Leonard says as much, only partly surprised to be waylaid in the employee break room.

"Who, me?" inquires the devil.

Leonard purses his mouth. "Didn't the boss give you my warning?"

Jim shrugs, then reaches into his pocket. "Hey, I—"

"No," Leonard says firmly. "I don't want to hear anything or want to see anything if it's coming from you."

Jim takes his hand out of his pocket, crosses his arms as he regards Leonard. "You're, like, the grumpiest person I've ever met."

Leonard flips Kirk off, grabs the Santa coat he needs from his locker, and proceeds to the break room door.

"Hey, McGrumpy!"

Leonard stops mid-push against the swinging door and snorts at Kirk. "Is that supposed to be a funny play on my name?"

Jim grins. "Is it really that funny?"

"No," Leonard tells him flatly. "And quit following me."

"Who says I am? I'm working." Jim grabs a mop and bucket leaning a wall.

"So you're a janitor."

"It's a dirty job but someone has to do it," Jim says, saluting Leonard like the maniac he is. 

Leonard just doesn't understand this guy. He walks away thinking that not understanding Jim might be a good thing.

Later, Leonard finds his missing token in his locker. He doesn't remember putting it in there but he is oddly glad to realize that he didn't lose it. He makes certain to place the token into his back pocket before he goes home.


	3. Santa Hates Himself

Jim changes from a once-and-a-while nuisance to a regular nuisance, as though by joking with (or rather, _at_ ) Leonard in the break room is permission to direct all his Kirkian charm at his designated victim.

And, yes, Leonard is definitely feeling like a victim at the moment, if he is to be honest. While Jim has withheld from stirring up the Santa Line crowd (although he has in fact photo-bombed it, which is only discovered after the fact when a customer returns with a complaint that there is a strange blond man in the background of her child's portrait making bunny ears behind Santa's head), in a way that actually causes Leonard to become more paranoid that the man is after him.

So he starts looking for Kirk to beat him at his own game.

The weird thing is, once Leonard has an inkling of where Jim might be, he arrives at the destination only to find that Jim has disappeared. It is like a game of cat-and-mouse, except that the mouse has gotten confused and begun to follow the cat. Yet when Leonard _stops_ actively seeking him out, Jim then pops up in his peripheral vision or across the table at his lunch break.

It's enough to drive a man crazy.

One of those 'lunch dates' is happening right now. Leonard has not looked for Jim in twenty-five minutes and now Jim is pulling out a chair and helping himself to Leonard's bag of potato chips.

"You're smelling better today," he says in greeting.

"You're a creep, Kirk."

"I'm just being honest. Kentucky Blue is a distinct odor. Difficult to cover up."

Leonard takes a vicious bite of his fast food burrito because he can't disagree with that remark.

Jim continues to eat Leonard's chips while watching his reactions.

Inevitably, Leonard has to put his food down and say, "Stop that."

Kirk cocks his head. "What?"

"Stop staring!" He pushes away his paper plate, crosses his arms, and mutters, "Damn it, now I've lost my appetite."

Immediately Jim drags the plate to his side of the table and picks up the burrito.

"Are you too poor to afford a meal?" Leonard shoots at him. "Is that why you're always hanging around the Department Store From Hell?"

"Nope," Jim replies between bites. "I'm paid a lot of money."

"Really? Then why is it that you don't actually seem to _do_ anything?"

"I do plenty," counters Jim, clearly offended.

Leonard ticks off his fingers one-by-one. "You mop, you fold clothes, you flirt with elderly ladies, you stack boxes, you fix broken doors—which isn't that Monty's job, by the way?"

"Scotty?"

"Who?" Leonard questions, having never heard of a Scotty. Then he shakes his head and goes on: "You hide behind racks, you upset Christine's makeup displays, which by the way really pisses her off—"

Jim gives him a quick grin.

"—you avoid Nyota, and you always vanish when you think I'm on to you."

"Huh," Jim says, impressed. "You're more observant than I anticipated." Then he reaches for Leonard's drink.

"For Christ's sake!" Leonard puts his precious sweet tea out of reach. "You can't drink after me!"

"But I'm thirsty."

"You've probably got some disease!"

"Hey, c'mon, really—" Jim makes a pleading face and coughs pathetically.

"Yeah, right. Find another sucker, kid."

Jim's coughs turn into a kind of choking sound. When the man starts thumping his chest, Leonard realizes Jim might actually _be choking_. He shoves the tea into Jim's outstretched hand.

All signs of choking instantly stop. Leonard can only gape as Jim smiles at him and proceeds to finish off the tea.

It is a rather amusing sight, some would later claim, to see a man dressed as Santa Claus chasing another man through the mall while screaming obscenities. The Youtube video becomes very popular.

~~~

Leonard is waved into an empty chair. The chair's twin has an occupant that Leonard eyes dubiously.

"What's this about?" he asks, turning to the manager.

Mr. Spock, standing stiffly behind his desk rather than sitting at it, clasps his hands behind his back and offers Leonard an unreadable expression. Leonard thinks he looks like a schoolmarm about to deliver a lecture to unruly children.

Perhaps the person next to Leonard thinks so as well, for he slouches into his seat like he wishes he could melt through it.

"It has come to my attention," Mr. Spock begins in his normal inflection-less tone, "that you, Mr. McCoy, have been showing up in the mornings—for lack of a simpler term—drunk."

"I didn't tell anybody, I swear!" cries Monty.

Leonard hardly spares the man a glance. "So what?" he challenges.

"Mr. McCoy, I may be lenient on occasion but do not think I am easily cowed. There are rules in your contract, and in particular there is one rule that matters more than others: you must not place this store or its employees in jeopardy with thoughtless actions. Mr. Scott has conspired with you, therefore he is equally guiltily of breaking this rule. That is why I have asked him to join us here this afternoon."

Spock turns his gaze on Monty, and Monty squeezes his eyes shut like he expects physical abuse.

Leonard can't take it. He simply can't.

He pushes out of his chair and plants his hands on top of Spock's pristine desk. "If you'll blame a man for trying to help, then this isn't a place I want to work! I quit, Mr. Spock. Find yourself another chump to fool your kids. Monty," he says, turning his head towards the other man, "I never did thank you properly. You've been nice to me even when I have been a dick to you. Thank you. If you want my advice, get away from this guy too. He's more of a dick than I am."

Monty stares at Leonard with wide eyes—until he suddenly starts grinning.

"Jim was right!" he crows. "This one'll do!"

Spock looks nonplussed to hear this.

Leonard is just plain confused. "What?"

Monty abandons his chair to give Leonard a hearty handshake. "I knew you could do it!"

" _What?_ " Leonard repeats, watching his hand go up and down, up and down.

Their boss sighs so softly that the sigh is almost noiseless. "There is still the matter of his disorderly conduct."

"Oh, pfft," says the resident engineer. "You've been worse, Mr. Spock."

Leonard's head snaps to Spock to find that the man is actually blushing.

Spock clears his throat and says without preamble, "Dismissed."

"What?" Leonard questions for the third time. "Did I miss something? Weren't you going to fire me?"

"You quit," Spock replies solemnly, "but I am told selective hearing is an attribute of a good supervisor. Good day, Mr. McCoy."

Monty drags Leonard away before Leonard can think up a reply.

Once outside the office, Leonard runs a hand through his hair. "I have no idea what just happened, Monty."

"Thanks for being angry on my behalf. You warmed my wee heart!" Monty gives Leonard's shoulder a happy pat before he turns away.

"Wait," Leonard calls, "do you know Jim?"

Monty turns back, seeming confused. "Everybody knows Jim."

"I mean, are you friends with him?"

"Of course! If it weren't for Jim, I wouldn't be here. Nobody would, except Mr. Spock."

Monty provides no further explanation than that, leaving Leonard even more lost than he was before.

~~~

News travels fast. Gossip travels faster.

An hour later, everyone is congratulating Leonard like he has won some sort of grand prize. Leonard begins to itch to get out of the store, just to clear his head and return to his little world where he knows what he is troubles are. He doesn't want to these people to like him; and he doesn't want to like them in return.

Of course, to prove that there really is something to celebrate, Jim goes back to his old ways.

"Not again," mutters Leonard when a familiar figure twines through the line of parents and children.

"Santa!"

"Don't you dare," he growls at the approaching man.

"Santa," Jim says again, eyes sparkling, "I'm so happy for you!" Then he takes a seat in Leonard's lap. "Let me ask you a question."

"No."

"Just one."

"Why do you do this to me?"

"Why is Christmas special?"

"Damn it, Jim, you asked that before!"

"Yeah but this time you might have a different answer. So, why is Christmas special?"

 _It isn't!_ Leonard wants to cry out.

Then something miraculous happens. Over Jim's shoulder, Leonard sees a man weaving his way through the line to the platform, which he then mounts and comes over to them. Leonard's eyes go wide, followed a moment later by Jim's when Jim is grabbed by his ear from behind.

"Up," demands the man in a firm tone.

The encounter grows more interesting once Jim sees the identity of his assailant because he promptly falls off Leonard's lap. Then with haste Jim scuttles to a safe distance across the stage, looking simultaneously horrified and embarrassed.

"Wow, thanks," Leonard says with genuine gratitude. "Are you his parent?"

"No he's not!" cries Jim, who protectively covers over his abused ear like it might be in danger again.

The man standing in front of Leonard tucks his hands into his khaki pants' pockets. He sounds like he's trying to withhold laughter even as he delivers the admonishment, "You're too old for Santa's lap, Jim."

"And too damn big," mutters Santa.

The man turns his gaze upon Leonard. "Thank you for not having him arrested."

"I'm leaving now," Jim declares loudly, backing down the platform steps without taking his eyes off of the stranger.

"Wait," the man says simply.

Jim freezes.

"You forgot your lunchbox this morning."

Leonard's mouth twitches.

Jim's face turns red.

The man adds innocently, "I left it with Spock."

Jim mumbles something and wastes no time in making a swift exit.

Leonard can't help himself. He grins. "I'm not a very religious man, sir, but I'm inclined to think you might be an angel." He offers a hand in introduction. "McCoy, Leonard McCoy."

"Christopher Pike."

They shake hands. 

Pike says, "It's unfortunate that we had to meet under these circumstances."

"Yeah, well, your kid's annoying."

"I know."

Leonard has no qualms about tattling on an enemy. "It's nice of you to remember his lunch, but you didn't have to worry. He ate mine."

Pike sighs while drawing out a billfold. "How much?"

Leonard doesn't want the money. "Forget about it. Just make sure you have a talk with him about the dangers of sitting on strangers' laps."

"You got it," agrees Pike. He takes his leave shortly thereafter, and for the first time in a week Leonard is genuinely tickled by his strange situation.

~~~

The night ends with Leonard feeling semi-normal, or at least as normal as he suspects he can feel. He changes to his street clothes and meanders around the store hoping to find Jim. It's time to figure out why Kirk has to ask such a particular question, because now that it is apparent to Leonard that Jim doesn't do it for the entertainment value. If Leonard is able to determine the answer Jim wants, it could mean an end to this ridiculous lap-sitting farce.

But he hasn't seen hide nor hair of the man since the encounter with Christopher Pike. Jim is clearly hiding but not as part of a _catch-me-if-you-can_ game. 

That amuses Leonard and lightens his step.

He wanders through the different sections of the department store, asking the employees who haven't left yet if they've seen a crazy blond-haired man. Someone directs him to Customer Service, and Customer Service directs him to a small storage area designated for damaged items and returns. Leonard has never been in this area before and thus enters it with caution. Moving quietly turns to work out in his favor as he doesn't give his presence away when he spies Jim.

Thinking he sneak up and scare the guy further improves his mood.

With his back to Leonard, Jim is writing industriously on a yellow legal pad at a old, cluttered desk. One leg is stretched, and the other is tucked under him.

Leonard starts forward.

" _Fzzzzt_ ," he hears, " _...Sir?_ "

Jim picks up a walkie-talkie to his right and clicks it on. "Kirk here."

The static doesn't quite disguise Sulu's voice. " _We're shutting down in ten._ "

Jim looks at a sports watch on his wrist. "Roger that. It's been quiet today, so let's call it a Priority Two. Even if Scotty complains about it, do a walk-through of the shop."

"Already on it, sir."

"Good man, Sulu." Jim clicks off like he's done talking but a moment later lifts the speaker back to his mouth. "Hey, what's the status on our St. Nick?"

Leonard freezes on the spot.

"Lost him between the break room and the office." Sulu sounds like he hates to admit that. "I can check the cameras if you want."

"No problem," Jim replies in an unruffled tone. "I can find him."

"Can you now?" Leonard asks too softly.

Jim half-falls, half-leaps out of his chair, dropping his walkie-talkie to the floor in the process. "H-Hey? McCoy?"

Leonard picks up the radio, so furious that he can hardly thinks. He pitches the thing back at Kirk, who catches it and holds it to his chest. Then he stalks forward until he take a hold of Jim by the shirt collar and bring them nose-to-nose. 

"I get it now," he says, shaking Jim into silence when Jim tries to speak. "You were _literally_ on my tail this whole time. Why, Jim? What do you think I'm going to do?"

"It's not like that," Jim starts to say.

"Save the lie for someone who'll believe," he snarls. "Let me lay it out for you plain, Kirk: I'm not a criminal, and I don't like being treated like one. If you don't trust me enough that you've got the whole damn store keeping their eyes on me, then I don't need to be here." He lets Jim go and backs up. "Tell Spock—or whoever it is that's actually calling the shots—that I quit. This time, it's for fucking real."

He doesn't stick around to find out what Jim thinks about that.

~~~

The bar-slash-grill in the flyer is nearby in its own little strip mall. Leonard walks there on foot and finds a seat at one end of the mostly empty bar. On the opposite end, there is a guy already deep on his cups. Leonard plans to be just like him soon enough.

He takes out his token and sets it next to him.

The bartender is smart enough not question if Leonard should or should not be there. "What's your poison?"

"Beer to start." He has a credit card in his back pocket that he can use for tonight.

Two beers and a gin-and-tonic later, Leonard is contemplating his ring finger with the mellow buzz of someone who has spent years perfecting his tolerance level. The evidence of his marriage is long gone. What Jocelyn did with her ring, he will never know; his is in a small wooden box in his childhood home, hidden in the back of a closet somewhere along with other remnants of the past. Some things he could not bring himself to give away. There is an ancient chest filled with toys, gathering dust. If he was a stronger man, he would have let it all go, as she tried to do. He wouldn't still be running away years and years down the road, always so close to drowning himself.

"Whiskey," he calls to the bartender when his thoughts get too heavy. Then, "Are you going to stand there or take a seat?"

Jim slips onto the unoccupied stool beside Leonard.

"How'd you find me?"

"I'm good at that, remember?"

"Oh, yeah." The kid is also good at lying.

Neither man says anything until Leonard's whiskey arrives. Jim orders a beer. Then Jim picks up Leonard's forgotten token as if it is his own and sets it to spinning on the countertop like a coin. 

"Aren't you are going to ask?" Leonard presses when silence follows, already prepared with a snide comeback to a dumb question.

"No." 

Nonplussed, Leonard drains his glass and smacks it down on the counter with a thunk. "Why not? You're so invested in my business anyway."

"Not for the reason that you think," Jim replies. He catches the token as it spins and lays it flat, seeming to mull over something. Eventually he says, "Don't quit."

Leonard turns to stare at him. With the whiskey and its predecessors running through his system, Kirk looks strangely young and ill-at-ease to him. That makes a part of Leonard meanly glad.

"Don't quit," Jim says again.

"Buy me a drink and I'll think about it.

The man nods. Leonard orders more whiskey.

"Don't you feel guilty," he asks later, his words starting to slur together, "buying an alcoholic a drink?

"A recovering alcoholic," Jim adds, tapping the token. "120 Days," he reads. "That's a long time."

"Not really," Leonard admits. "I do it once a year."

"Do what?"

He hmphs and fumbles with a napkin stuck to the countertop. "Sober up."

Jim murmurs, "Weird. Does that have anything to do with the gig?"

"What?"

"Playing Santa Claus."

"Oh, that." Leonard runs a hand over his face. "I guess. This time of year. It sucks." He can hear himself talking too much but cannot seem to stop.

Is this what Jim was waiting for? The answer eludes him.

Jim isn't looking at him. "So, the Christmas season makes you drink. That _is_ pretty bad. Maybe you should consider a career change."

"My little girl loved Santa Claus," Leonard blurts out.

Jim is just a glimpse in the corner of his eye, growing smaller. Maybe it is because the guy does not say anything that Leonard lowers his guard. Or maybe it is the alcohol doing that for him. He finds he doesn't care.

"I'd take her to see him every year, but even at home she'd climb into my lap and make me pretend to be him. She had the funniest laugh." Leonard tips his head forward. "Like mine." His laugh doesn't sound funny at all, just then. He sounds like he is choking to death.

A hand starts to pat his back. Jim offers the sage advice, "Maybe you should stop drinking now."

"Why?" Leonard questions belligerently, wiping at his tears and snot. "I ain't got nothin' left, Jim. Nothing but my bones—" He lifts his hand. "—and this drink."

Once again, Jim says nothing. 

Leonard swallows what's left in the glass. "Why'd you follow me?"

"Because I messed up."

"You did," Leonard agrees. "My daughter... my daughter, Joanna..." The words can't escape him.

Maybe Jim takes pity on him because he says, "Playing Santa Claus seems like a good way to honor her." 

Leonard's eyes well. "I don't do it to honor her. I do it to see her again."

The hand slides off his back. Jim is growing small again. "For how long?"

Leonard squeezes his eyes shut against the dancing lights above the bar and rubs at his forehead with the back of a hand. "How long, what?"

"How long have you been... like this?"

"Nine years." He slumps in his chair. "Almost nine years, in six more days."

"Then wouldn't she be too old for Santa?"

It's an innocent question, yet it stops Leonard cold. 

He can't imagine it, his little Jo, old enough to no longer believe in Santa Claus. Because he can't imagine it, he hates himself just a little bit more.

Once again, he has been left behind, even in a such a small way. He has been trying to hold on to six year-old who left him a long time ago. Does it never end, the pain? And if it could end, what would he do with himself then?

Leonard shakes himself free of his stupor and reaches blindly for his token, knocking over several beer bottles in the process. 

"Leave me alone," he tells Jim Kirk when the man tries to clean up the mess Leonard made. "I don't want you here."

Jim says something, then, but the world is darkening at the edges. How much he did have to drink? Leonard can't remember now.

Someone grasps his shoulders, rights him like another beer bottle.

"I may throw up on you," he warns that person, and then does.

~~~

The road they're on is bumpy. So bumpy, in fact, that Leonard comes back to awareness because of them and tries to flatten out the bumps in a very violent manner.

"Ow, ow, ow," he hears. "That's my head!"

The violence doesn't have the intended effect. Leonard is bumping along worse than ever and really, really doesn't like it. He whacks at whatever is within reach to make his point. " _Potholes_ ," he slurs. "Avoid the damn potholes!"

He swerves sideways, and that's when Leonard finds himself upended. When he cracks an eye open, it is to find Jim bent over him, panting.

"You're awake," Jim says unnecessarily. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

He sees three melt into one then become three again. That's a no-brainer. "Three-one-three."

"Good enough for me. Get up. You're walking." For some reason, Jim rubs at the back of his head.

Leonard groans. "Leave me here."

Jim sighs long and loud, then reaches down to grab Leonard's arm and yank at it.

Leonard lets that arm flop back to the pavement. "Leave me here to _die_."

The mutter under Jim's breath sounds suspiciously like _drama queen_.

Is Kirk making fun of him? Leonard doesn't appreciate that. He rolls over and manages to sit up after the second try.

Jim congratulates him with "Good job," only to take no pity on him whatsoever and haul him up to his feet by the armpits.

Leonard wobbles for a moment on his own two feet.

"It's not that far," Jim promises him.

"I don't want to do this," Leonard complains.

"I can't take you home," Jim replies. "C'mon."

"Where're we going?"

Jim doesn't answer. 

If Leonard had had any presence of mind at all, he would have figured that answer out very quickly.

~~~

"Yeesh!" cries Montgomery Scott. "He smells like a brewery."

"Not my fault," claims the man who abandoned Leonard at the dock door. 

Jim told him to stay there like he's a dog and now is talking to Monty like Leonard isn't within arm's reach, waiting patiently to throw up on someone again.

"I kinda heard it was," Monty counters. "Did he quit?"

"No, I bought him a drink."

"Or ten, by the looks of the lad. Unfortunately my tonic doesn't work on the newly drunk."

"I have a plan."

"Is Mr. Spock going to like it?"

"He'll never know, Scotty. We just have get Bones changed and settled somewhere out of sight."

"I don't know..."

"Aw, c'mon, man.. look at him!"

"Yeah, he's pretty pathetic."

"Hey," interrupts Leonard, "I have ears, you dimwits."

"Three sheets to the wind and yet he can still cuss. I knew I liked him. All right, Jim. Let's get the man inside."

"Wait," Leonard tries to protest when both of his arms are grabbed. "Wait a minute!"

"It's okay," Jim assures him. "We've done this before."

Leonard stares at the two men, bug-eyed, while they haul him into the department store.

~~~

The next time Leonard is more alert, he is wearing a Redskins sweatshirt and a very tight pair of jeans that don't belong to him. He lifts his arm to find a price tag hanging from one sleeve.

"Oh sweet Jesus," he says. He feels up his backside and finds a tag on the jeans as well. It's best to draw the inspection at his underwear, he decides. It's already uncomfortable enough thinking that either Monty or Jim dressed him.

Or both of them.

"Sweet Jesus," he says again and rolls off the flimsy cot into which he had been bundled at some point with a ridiculous number of blankets. Leonard is not certain if it's normal to have a long blackout period followed by very strong lucidity. Exactly how much did he have to drink in that bar?

He vaguely recalls Jim dragging him part of the way once they reached the parking lot of the mall. He sort of recalls being sick, and he thinks Monty is conspiring to hide him from...

Oh, dear god.

They're all going to get fired, but him especially.

"Kind of hard to do that when you already quit," says a voice behind him.

Leonard turns, finding Jim leaning in an open doorway. A faint light can be seen down the hallway behind Jim, and it casts Jim's features into something slightly unearthly.

"Er," Leonard begins, not having exactly been observant about Jim's clothes but thinking that they look new, "did I throw up on you?"

"Oh yes. On my favorite t-shirt too," Jim tells him, sounding aggrieved.

Leonard scrubs his fingertips against his forehead. "Sorry."

Jim drops his head to his chin, snorts and looks up again. He's grinning. "Bones, I like you. It's going to work out."

Leonard looks around for this Bones person until it occurs to him that Jim is calling him that. "Why are you calling me Bones?"

"Because you sounded so serious about it."

 _About what?_ Leonard doesn't remember half of the things he said at the bar. Maybe he didn't say much of anything. It's likely Jim is operating in a fantasy world all his own.

"Okay, whatever," he decides. "Listen, kid... I need to—well, first I need my own damn clothes. This is stealing. And second, I need to go home."

"Do you have a home?" Jim asks in a tone that implies he is actually wondering that.

"Christ, of course I do! I'm not some hobo who sleeps under a bridge."

"Just curious." Jim pushes away from the doorframe. "Follow me."

This is a strange turn of events, Leonard thinks, as he keeps pace with Jim through a short hallway that leads to a side of the warehouse he has never seen before. 

There comes the sound of clanking and clacking, somebody working on something metal. It turns out to be Monty, who is halfway inside a forklift with its guts spread out around him.

"Oh, he's awake!" calls the man when he spies Leonard. "Hand me that oil can, Jim. Aye, that one."

Leonard recoils at the state of the workshop. "My god, what is this place?"

"It's me own junkyard," Monty says gleefully. 

"Aren't we in the store?"

Monty rubs his nose with the back of his hand, spreading engine grease across it. "Yes?"

Leonard looks to Jim.

Jim shrugs. "He's special."

Monty goes back to his self-designated task. Leonard thinks it might be safer not to ask what he's doing to the forklift.

Jim wants to know if Leonard is hungry, pointing out that a liquid diet of the kind they recently indulged in doesn't qualify as sustenance for the body.

"And just where will we get food, Jim?" Leonard asks, once again following the man into another part of the store. "It's not like—"

Jim throws him a bag.

Leonard raises an eyebrow at the label. "Candy?"

Jim beams and shakes a bag of Swedish fish. "Sure!"

"First, we're wearing merchandise and now we're _eating_ it?" When Jim opens his mouth to respond, Leonard cuts in, "And don't say it's free."

Jim makes a face. "No wonder you don't get along with Spock."

"What's that mean?"

"Oh, nothing," says Jim much too innocently as he pops Swedish fish into his mouth.

"This is fantastical," Leonard concludes.

"Fantastic?"

"No, numb-nuts. Fantas—never mind."

Jim just continues to chew and stare so Leonard trades his Swedish fish for Sour Patch Kids and heads off in a different direction. Jim comes along behind him without making a fuss.

"Are we going to get arrested?" Leonard asks.

"For what?"

"Oh, I don't know. Breaking and entering. Vandalism. Theft."

"Monty invited us in, _I_ didn't puke on Nyota's mannequins—"

"WHAT?"

"—and we can have anything we use deducted from our paychecks, plus with the employee discount that makes stuff cheaper than at other places."

"What was that again about Nyota's mannequins?"

Jim looks elsewhere and whistles.

Leonard can picture himself throttling Jim but resists the urge for the time-being. Although he hasn't made a conscious decision about his destination, they end up at the Santa Line.

Viewing it as an outsider would, Leonard supposes it is a tastefully decorated set. It has an elegance to satisfy the upper-class and enough free-form to entice the eager children. 

And at the center of it all should be someone who brings the set to life.

Leonard winces. He truly is terrible at his job, but the job is not something he can give up.

Wanting to take his mind off that train of thought, his eyes scrutinize the set for flaws rather than perfection. In doing so, he finally sees something he hasn't noticed before.

"Are those Pavel's reindeer?" he questions, stepping up to one of the life-size models.

"Oh, yeah!" says Jim, like he hasn't seen them before, coming around to the other side. "Awesome, aren't they?"

They are as big as the horses on a carousel. Leonard has a horrible thought just then. "Jim, he's not going to let the kids sit on these, is he?"

"Sure, why not?" Jim pushes at one. "The kids will love it. They're sturdy, see?"

"Like hell!" Leonard bursts out. "This is an accident waiting to happen! Y'all must be crazy. No, you can't."

Jim blinks at him. "Are you Southern?"

"I won't let you," Leonard says stubbornly. "I'll talk to Spock."

Jim sniffs. "Spock listens to me."

"Uh-huh," says Leonard. "Be that as it may, the last thing he'll want is a lawsuit and bad publicity. So he'll listen to _me_ for a change."

Jim's eyebrows come down. "Are you insinuating I have bad ideas, Bones?"

"I'm sure you wouldn't know a good one if it bit you on the ass."

With a scoffing sound, Jim throws his bag of Swedish fish at Leonard's chest and slings a leg over one of the reindeer. "It's totally safe. See," when he's fully seated, he bounces a little on its back, "totally—"

The reindeer statue makes a cracking sound.

"—safe," Jim finishes just before the thing snaps off at the hooves and tilts over sideways.

Leonard drops the bag of candy with a cry of "Jim!"

Jim literally ends up with his head over his heels, which is unfortunately right at the edge of the stage.

"I'm perfectly fine," he calls out weakly once he is laid out flat on the floor below.

Leonard nearly breaks his own neck in trying to jump off the stage after the fool. Of course, that might be more due to the fact that a string of Christmas lights running along the stage's perimeter tangles up his feet. Amid the sounds of bulbs popping, fabric ripping, and delicate things breaking, Leonard lands with an _oof_ beside Kirk.

"...Pavel's going to kill us," Jim remarks.

"Am I dead?" Leonard responds.

"Not yet."

"Damn."

They lay there in silence for a long minute.

"Question," Jim murmurs at last.

"Shoot."

"Why is Christmas special?"

Leonard answers without much though, "Because it makes you miss the people you want to celebrate it with."

"Because it reminds you why you can't celebrate with them."

It takes Leonard a moment to realize that Jim is talking about himself.

He turns his head to Jim. "Yeah?"

Jim's head turns to Leonard. "Yeah."

"Is that why you kept bothering me?"

"Maybe." Kirk pauses. "You looked like you knew the answer to my question."

Leonard ponders that. Jim could be a little less crazy than he originally suspected.

"...Bones."

"Don't call me that." Then, "What?"

"Is something burning?"

" _What?_ " 

Leonard sniffs the air, then sits up with haste.

Hell yes, something is burning. The Santa stage. It's on _fire_.

"Shit!"

"Uh-oh," agrees Jim, also sitting up to look at what Leonard is seeing, which namely is a red velour coverlet ablaze. "Bones, how fast can you run?"

Leonard is halfway to the nearest fire extinguisher by the time the built-in smoke detection system lights up the store with red sirens and ringing alarms. From there on out, the night is positively chaotic.


	4. Santa Hates Idiots... A Little Less

At the end of Leonard's tale, Jim wants to know, "Why are you both looking at me?"

Leonard sighs. He says to Spock, "It's bad. I know it is. For what it's worth, I'm sorry about the set. You can give me the rest of my points... and take my check if that's what you really need to do. Whatever the remainder of the cost for the damage is, I'll pay it back." _Somehow_ , he doesn't add.

As Jim suddenly looks anxious, Spock turns away. "There is something I want to show you, Mr. McCoy."

Leonard can't imagine what that would be. He is surprised that Spock hasn't kicked his butt out of the store yet. Maybe he shouldn't have gotten so defensive earlier. Yes, he's still mad about certain things but in picturing the larger scheme of things, he knows Spock has more right to be angry than he does. After all, it could very well be Spock's head on the platter when the owner finds out about the fire. Not to mention that the store is now closed for the time being and will lose at least a day's worth of potential sales.

Leonard also can't help but think of the children, the ones whose parents planned to bring them to see Santa Claus. Imagining their disappointment, the heart-wrenching kind only shown by kids, Leonard feels extremely guilty.

On the other side of the desk, Spock unlocks a bottom drawer and removes a large laminated paper of a shape and size that Leonard has seen before.

"Spock..." Jim's anxiety has transformed into something more chagrined.

Spock brings the chart over to Leonard.

Leonard takes it uncertainly, but that uncertainty dissipates as he reads the name across the top. It takes an additional second for him to realize why the chart is strange.

"There's more than five boxes."

"Yes," Spock replies.

"And there's tally marks outside of them."

"Yes," Spock says again. "Turn it around."

Jim groans.

The back is covered with series upon series of marks, growing smaller in size as if the person making them had been running out of space to write but was desperate to fit them on the chart. Leonard couldn't possibly count how many there were.

And he also couldn't begin to imagine how much trouble someone had to get into to earn all those marks.

Jim tries to take the chart from him. "It isn't as bad as it looks."

Spock intervenes by reclaiming possession of the chart before Jim can. "It was, in fact, worse," he tells Leonard.

Unexpectedly Leonard feels a keen sympathy for this man. "Spock, why the heck is he still here?"

"Frankly, I am not certain."

"Okay, okay," Jim admits, "I know I'm not Employee of the Year, but c'mon." He pleads his case to Leonard. "Spock's system is a little strict, right, Bones?"

"If it weren't for you trying to prove a point, kid, Pavel wouldn't be weeping over the melted face of a reindeer right now."

Jim winces. "I can fix that."

"You truly cannot," Spock intervenes dryly. "Nor would I want you to try. Leonard," he goes on to say, "my point in showing you this is that I am understandably disappointed by the events of last night but I am also not surprised. In the future, I would ask that before you associate with Mr. Kirk on any matter, you consider the consequences of a negative outcome. Additionally, my only stipulation for accepting that no one is at fault for this incident is a simple one: keep me informed."

Spock moves away, obviously to give Leonard time to let his request sink in.

Leonard's mother has always said to never look a gift horse in the mouth.

Jim, scuffing one tennis shoe against the other, refuses to look at anyone.

"Okay," Leonard agrees, "but I have a condition of my own."

Jim glances up. Spock lifts an eyebrow.

Leonard's mouth curves. "When the Santa Line is up and running again, I don't want to deal with the same problem—which means Jim has to be taken care of. Make him an elf, Mr. Spock... and under my supervision."

"What!" Jim cries.

"Excellent suggestion, Mr. McCoy," the store manager replies approvingly. "Jim, you now report to Leonard for the remainder of the holiday season."

"Spock, you can't do that!"

Spock merely looks at him.

Jim flushes. "Do I need to bring up Uhura?"

It is Spock's turn to flush.

"What about Nyota?" Leonard has to ask.

"Do you want to see her chart, Bones?"

Leonard's mouth falls open. "She has a _Misconduct Chart_?"

Spock looks very uncomfortable with the turn of the conversation. If Leonard had been the one to tell Nyota he was giving her a point for misbehavior, he imagines he would be too. How is Spock still alive?

He takes pity on the man. "Nyota is a forgiving soul."

"She really isn't," Jim replies a tad gleefully.

"I fail to see how this subject is relevant."

Jim, too, seems ready to take pity on Spock and also to consider something he doesn't like. He loses some of his amusement. "Spock, what about the safety of the store? Who's going to look after her if you reassign me?"

"Given your recent distraction with our new hire, I assume you have trained Mr. Sulu well enough to perform those duties in your absence."

Leonard snickers.

Jim wilts. "...I don't like elves."

"And I don't like Santa Claus," Leonard retorts, so pleased to have won. "I guess that makes us a pair."

"Don't make me wear the hat, Bones."

Oh, Leonard is going to enjoy what's to come very, very much. Whoever said turnabout is fair play knew precisely what they were talking about. Finally, the universe ready to let him experience some turnabout for himself!

~~~

_One week later..._

"I made it better," the store's interior decorator is telling the new Head of Security. 

Hikaru Sulu nods, his expression serious as he listens to Pavel's lengthy description of the extra effort and late hours he put into redesigning the Santa set. Nearby, Monty is bolting a freshly painted (and newly purchased) reindeer to the stage floor. It has a "DO NOT TOUCH" sign hanging around its neck, as well as around the necks of its brothers. Earlier on, the engineer had proudly presented to the entire staff of the store the light fixture he added to the reindeer's nose that makes it glow red. It came with the assurance that it was hazard-free.

Leonard has to admit that Monty, as well as Pavel, know their craft.

Nyota sails by with two employees dutifully on her heels, each carrying a stack of red and green sweaters. She nods to Leonard in passing.

Someone pokes Leonard's shoulder from behind.

Leonard rolls his eyes. "What now?"

Jim has the look of someone who is being punished unfairly. With his green elf cap, complete with a bell hanging in his face, he is quite a comical sight.

Maybe this is the reason Leonard is feeling better with each passing day.

"You're late," he tells Kirk. "That's a point."

"Bones," complains his companion, "I'm already a thousand in the hole."

"Now it's one thousand and one."

"Ugh," mutters Jim, pacing away to sulk in the sleigh.

Leonard taps his fingers on his Santa's Chair, anticipating the opening of the store's doors and his soon-to-be customers. He makes Jim wipe the noses of the snotty ones.

He's chuckling to himself when someone steps into his peripheral vision.

"You're in a good mood, Leonard."

"Mr. Pike," Leonard says, surprised by his visitor. "How'd you get in here? We're not open yet."

"Oh," Christopher says, smiling slightly, "I have my ways." He raises his voice. "Jim!"

The elf hat pops up over the rim of the sleigh, from where Jim had taken to lying down to further bask in his sulk.

Leonard hears, "Oh shit."

"Jim," Pike calls again.

Jim sits up, looking both disturbed and resigned. "Why do you keep coming here?" he begs of Pike.

The man holds out a Christmas scarf. "Here."

"No."

"James, come here. Now."

Leonard watches in fascination as Jim finally lumbers over, dragging his feet all the way.

Pike begins to wind the scarf around and around Jim's neck, until hardly anything is visible below Jim's nose. Then he tucks the ends away so they won't flap in the open air.

Leonard looks from the older man to the younger one, really wanting to know, "Is he your father?"

"NO!" comes the muffled but vehement response. 

Pike informs Leonard, "I put his lunch in the break room's refrigerator. Please see to it that he eats the carrots."

"Okay," Leonard says.

With the expression of a man who has accomplished what he wanted, Christopher Pike then walks away.

Jim mutters a long, unintelligible sentence into his scarf.

Leonard cups his ear. "What was that?"

Jim lifts his mouth free and complains, "Seriously, Bones, he needs to stop doing this. I've told him over and over not to bother me at work!"

Leonard just looks at Jim—looks at him for a long moment before he laughs.

"What?" Jim wants to know, clearly confused by the reaction.

"I have no sympathy for you, kid," declares the jolly-looking Santa Claus. "Now get into position. Our first one's going to be so excited to be at the front of the line, he'll be drooling. If he offers you candy, don't take it."

Jim swats at the bell in his face and sighs loudly before moving away from the stage to do as ordered.

Leonard raises a hand and offers a thumbs-up to the whole of the store.

Far across the expanse, in a sales office with a window, a certain manager is taking note of this gesture and deciding all is well with his department store.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **The End and Merry Christmas!**


End file.
